I can't compete but love words, and love Shakespeare.
Here's what emerged after I digested your lesson.
He skidded into the kitchen on his septic blistering self, ricocheted off the wall, lost control and landed in a pile of his self made shit. A battalion of younger me’s braced for an attack. Instead, there came a rumble, a burst of tumultuous laughter, then, from the love of some forgotten god, a voice chanting. As the volume increased, I grabbed hold of my senses, streaked past the pile of contemptuous debris, and bolted through the back door with my singing lungs dancing.
Love the movement in this! A string of active verbs bouncing us along, and some lovely alliteration and assonance with those repeated S sounds and the echo of 'bATTalion' and 'ATTack'. Some really imaginative phrasing and imagery, too. Particularly enjoyed 'the love of some forgotten god' and 'my singing lungs dancing' :D
A real sense of freedom (and literal escape!) going on here. I hope you enjoyed writing it and thanks for sharing.
I'm really loving this post, Jo, but you make a couple of comments about iambic meter which could cause a whole heap of confusion! You say:
"In each line there are five beats (or ‘iambic feet’)"
"And each beat has two syllables — one unstressed, and one stressed"
I happen to be a complete nerd who's studied poetic meter obsessively, so I hope it's okay if I dissect these comments a little to add some clarity! (When it comes to something as technical as meter, I find careful clarity is very important!)
A "foot" is not a beat. They're *not* synonymous terms.
"Foot" division is simply a process of *marking off* the beats in an organised and consistent manner for the sake of description and analysis. So an "iambic foot" has one offbeat and one beat; the *purpose* of the foot division is to highlight the beat placement. What we call "iambic meter" is a meter where the default is an undulating beat pattern in which the beats land on every other syllable. If there were no *offbeats*, there would be no beat pattern!
On the back of that, it's important to be clear that the first syllable of a spondee is a stressed offbeat, not a beat (and I like your examples, by the way).
While I'm here, I'll mention that few people fully understand the principles of beat displacement: while it's commonly recognised that a beat can be recoiled (pulled back a space, which is where we can mark a "trochaic foot"), not so many people realise that a beat can also be pumped *forward* (this creates a "di-di-DUM-DUM" pattern, which cannot be divided into two separate "feet": it can only be described as a "double foot"). I wrote up this post a long time ago, which neatly breaks down the technical principles. You might find it an interesting read!: https://qr.ae/pGeXLZ
Hi Kier, thanks for this very useful breakdown! I agree 'beat' isn't really the correct term here. (I actually tend to think of them more as 'bars', like in musical notation). I also find when teaching newbies (and actors in particular) that counting in groups of five is much easier than ten, hence getting them to think of each foot as a 'beat' in its own right, but I can see how that might be confusing!
As I said earlier in the post, I'm trying to keep things as simple as possible to give an accessible intro to iambic pentameter in this lesson, since we're not going to concern ourselves too deeply with the technicalities in this course. But people can absolutely delve more deeply into specifics if they like — thanks for the link, that looks really handy also.
Yes, I wouldn't advise anyone to count all the syllables, only the beats! I also provide some practical advice as to how to go about scansion in that link.
I actually did a scansion a very long time ago of that Macbeth speech (it's very lively, but all the lines, apart from the last, are the correct length! The word "idiot" is contracted to two syllables, as is "syllable", ironically enough!): https://bsky.app/profile/8dawntreader8.bsky.social/post/3lms2k6kepk2w
You're right on the money about "anchor words"!
Obviously, you're only touching on meter here, but the video by Tom Scott which I link in this post is really useful for beginners, I think. I also touch on other common stumbling blocks: https://qr.ae/pvC4Jn
Shakespeare Nerd Here! Very illuminating lesson on how the purportedly Greatest Writer of the English Language uses and mis-uses (subverts?) rules and language to dramatic effects! Nicely done, Jo Gatford! Sometimes, if I'm "thinking" too much about content, I'll unblock my mental censor and write in iambic pentameter, which comes easily for me, maybe because I'm a musician and percussionist, but it distracts me sufficiently from content to allow more authentic and spontaneous flow to occur. Does this make sense? Iambic pentameter is a true friend in this way. <3 Other forms can do this non-intuitive thing, where a restrictive set of rules actually lead to a "letting up on the brakes" effect in creative flow, by causing us to "Look askance" and allow a deeper access to imagery and imaginative flow.
So interesting to see the connection between music and Shakespeare — Andrew in the comments below also mentioned that.
And the non-intuitive restriction method totally makes sense, especially when it comes to iambic pentameter, perhaps because it's a strange balance between a rhythmic flow and the fact you have to slow down and think/look closely at each individual word you're choosing to put down. Something meditative about it maybe!
Now this is a culinary, literary journey... I feel like this could have been written by Falstaff. Love the images of 'the sharp sword of dawn' and the pimento/scornful eye in particular. Excellent stuff.
Thank you! And the word of the day today from Merriam-Webster was "vouchsafe," which it cited as being used 60 times in Shakespeare's works. Noted in the definition's notes: "'Vouchsafe me raiment, bed, and food,' King Lear begs his daughter Regan." Regan wasn't known to be much of a giver though...
I've never given Shakespeare any thought, but do think about music when I think/feel what I am writing (rap music, country music). Sometimes, I get too abstract or indulgent, so I'll have to try and apply iambic pentameter discipline. Here are two samples from a recent essay and a WIP (memoir):
"I've spent most of my time on Earth in my head. I use my eyes and ears more than my mouth by a factor of ten. And by the grace of good sense and good genes, I've made it to the raggedy end of this mortal coil, way over here, on the far right of most graphs."
"My mother’s bed.
A bigger house. A better part of town.
We’re in the waning days of our American dream.
I gaze at her mattress, at the span of it. The sheets are barely lit. They’re all over the place, sweat upon, slept upon, kicked off by unhappy feet. I have a strong urge to curl up inside them. But I don’t. That would be weird. It’s something a teenage son wouldn’t do.
Instead, I linger at her doorway, fifteen and full of alarm."
With this second one, I wanted the word "unhappy" to serve as a bump in the rhythm of the rest, to sum up my mother at that time.
I almost wrote my dissertation on the comparison of rap and Shakespeare! So many similar rhetorical techniques in both — designed to bounce and ricochet around the brain when heard aloud.
And there's definitely something so lyrical and melodic about your writing rhythm. Like it wants to be read out loud. I really like the build up of alliteration/assonance: eyes and ears / more than my mouth / grace of good sense and good genes / bigger house & better part of town / fifteen and full of alarm. And those subtle internal rhymes/repetitions: waning days / sweat upon, slept upon.
'Unhappy' definitely acts as a bump in the flow. It forces you to pause, while echoing the Ps from earlier in the line. Something about the soft vowels suddenly hitting a short A in unhappy. Really effective.
Allow me to fudge a bit and post a recently published tiny tale, only because it hits so many marks stated above.
I appreciate this lesson so much, feeling my writing has taken a turn to more joyful spirited small works
A link follows to the SORTES 21 piece « Ketchup ».
The running girl puns past fish arguing politics at a cafe. "Tuna it down," she says and runs to the circus. Her t-shirt reads I'm a pacifish. She runs the bleachers leaping over captive children watching a goat with one leg throw knives at their future. "Goat to go!" And she's off, in chase of a tuxedo cat dancing a tree of children to the river. She runs past a guard station and thuds huge pavers of off balance. The square ends blocked by a long concrete wall of division. She slows. Stops. Reads a smear of red letters. RUN
Such inventive language and imagery in this, thanks for sharing. You manage to capture the momentum of her journey in the leaps and bounds of your sentences. I loved 'a tree of children' and the smear of red letters bringing us back to the beginning.
Thanks for this ,Jo! I'm working my way through the Action and Emotion part and was struck by how many nouns for my emotion choice of anger have already been turned into verbs in common usage. Dagger, knife, gun, are already shortened from 'stabbed with a knife" to just 'knifed', though, to be fair, there are non-anger nouns like water or milk. But I wonder if nouns associated with violence have more commonly become verbs than other nouns?
It also occurred to me that 'He worded me' needs some context (which Shakespeare provided) as it could also be used for flirting with someone or boring them.
Oh that's such a great observation about the angry/violent verbing. I'm sure someone cleverer than me might have the answer about what makes a noun particularly verb-able... Perhaps when the object itself is used to perform an action, or becomes the product of an action?
And another good point about 'wording' being versatile depending on context — it could totally work in those forms as well. Makes me want to go and put them into practice now...
Love this lesson. Here are my experiments. The more I marked meter, the less sure I became.
I want the world to feather-pillow the ones I love - son, cats, friends. And barn-door me from others' need. Close it up before the horse of my worry bolts into the yard while I'm shaking February out of my comforter in crisp spring sun.
After marking meter and deciding on anchor words, I revised to:
World, feather-pillow the ones I love and barn-door me
from need before the worry horse bolts into the yard
shaking February out of its mane in crisp spring sun.
My question is: a word by itself has a stress or no stress pattern. However, in a line, the stresses in a word seem to my reading ear to be somewhat changed by what's around it. Is this the case or am I not fully meter-savvy?
Hi Lori, I love your innovative verbing in this example: 'feather-pillow' and 'barn-door' have great sensory/physical antithesis, too. And 'the horse of my worry' bolting is the perfect image to follow on from that safe barn. Ending on the monosyllables and assonance of 'crisp spring sun' works wonderfully, too.
If I understand your question correctly, yes, sometimes the configuration of a sentence will naturally place more stress on a particular word depending on the context. It's like that trick of changing the emphasis within the same phrase:
*I* never said she stole my money.
I *never* said she stole my money.
I never *said* she stole my money.
I never said *she* stole my money etc etc
In contemporary prose we'd probably put our selected emphasis word in italics, but Shakespeare tended to reconfigure his sentences so that the word he wanted was either placed specifically where the natural meter emphasis would fall, or he'd force an irregular meter so it was hard for the speaker to do anything else.
Take the word 'world' in your piece. In the first draft, it has a natural emphasis but it flows pretty quietly within the phrase. In the second iteration, you've placed it right up front, followed by another stressed syllable (which also creates a lovely little pause in between), so we're grabbing the reader's attention with: WORLD... FEA-ther pillow etc...
Thanks - and yes to italicizing emphasis that as a reader I sometimes find over-dramatic! The kind of reconfiguring to match or disrupt meter that you describe Shakespeare doing is only one part of his brilliance and something I'm quite sure I'll never achieve. I'm a bit sorry to lose "son, cats, friends," all stressed, from the first version because it sets up "crisp spring sun" you mention at the end - all stressed, and plays with the son/sun homonym. But son, cats, friends sounds to me like padding in the new, shorter version. Onward!
Oh zounds, you're absolutely right of course. Have amended. A brain-fart during drafting (and one of those insidious adjustments that make it into popular phrasing!). Thanks for flagging it up.
Hello! I am an English Lit student studying at a college in Cambridge, UK. I loved this! So helful for my studies, super engaging too.
I'm not currently on paid though, please could you verify whether I'd be able to access the next three lessons without subscribing? If not, super happy to subscibe of course, but would love the clarification. Thanks!
Hi Lilian, glad you enjoyed the lesson! Yes, you'll need a paid sub for the next three lessons — but that also gets you access to all the other wonderful Forever Workshop workshops in their archive, so it's kind of a bargain. :)
Yassss. Bring us the bard! Have never studied him properly, but was stunned by a Shakespeare troupe who did an abridged version of three of his plays (filthy indeed) at University and also loved the 90s outbreak of Shakespeare movies (Much Ado, Henry V, Baz Lurman's Romeo and Juliet just to mention a few) so I'm excited about this.
Ahh that's great to hear. And seeing Shakespeare live is just the best experience, isn't it? Always gives me a brand new appreciation and excitement for language.
I can't compete but love words, and love Shakespeare.
Here's what emerged after I digested your lesson.
He skidded into the kitchen on his septic blistering self, ricocheted off the wall, lost control and landed in a pile of his self made shit. A battalion of younger me’s braced for an attack. Instead, there came a rumble, a burst of tumultuous laughter, then, from the love of some forgotten god, a voice chanting. As the volume increased, I grabbed hold of my senses, streaked past the pile of contemptuous debris, and bolted through the back door with my singing lungs dancing.
Love the movement in this! A string of active verbs bouncing us along, and some lovely alliteration and assonance with those repeated S sounds and the echo of 'bATTalion' and 'ATTack'. Some really imaginative phrasing and imagery, too. Particularly enjoyed 'the love of some forgotten god' and 'my singing lungs dancing' :D
A real sense of freedom (and literal escape!) going on here. I hope you enjoyed writing it and thanks for sharing.
I'm really loving this post, Jo, but you make a couple of comments about iambic meter which could cause a whole heap of confusion! You say:
"In each line there are five beats (or ‘iambic feet’)"
"And each beat has two syllables — one unstressed, and one stressed"
I happen to be a complete nerd who's studied poetic meter obsessively, so I hope it's okay if I dissect these comments a little to add some clarity! (When it comes to something as technical as meter, I find careful clarity is very important!)
A "foot" is not a beat. They're *not* synonymous terms.
"Foot" division is simply a process of *marking off* the beats in an organised and consistent manner for the sake of description and analysis. So an "iambic foot" has one offbeat and one beat; the *purpose* of the foot division is to highlight the beat placement. What we call "iambic meter" is a meter where the default is an undulating beat pattern in which the beats land on every other syllable. If there were no *offbeats*, there would be no beat pattern!
On the back of that, it's important to be clear that the first syllable of a spondee is a stressed offbeat, not a beat (and I like your examples, by the way).
While I'm here, I'll mention that few people fully understand the principles of beat displacement: while it's commonly recognised that a beat can be recoiled (pulled back a space, which is where we can mark a "trochaic foot"), not so many people realise that a beat can also be pumped *forward* (this creates a "di-di-DUM-DUM" pattern, which cannot be divided into two separate "feet": it can only be described as a "double foot"). I wrote up this post a long time ago, which neatly breaks down the technical principles. You might find it an interesting read!: https://qr.ae/pGeXLZ
Hi Kier, thanks for this very useful breakdown! I agree 'beat' isn't really the correct term here. (I actually tend to think of them more as 'bars', like in musical notation). I also find when teaching newbies (and actors in particular) that counting in groups of five is much easier than ten, hence getting them to think of each foot as a 'beat' in its own right, but I can see how that might be confusing!
As I said earlier in the post, I'm trying to keep things as simple as possible to give an accessible intro to iambic pentameter in this lesson, since we're not going to concern ourselves too deeply with the technicalities in this course. But people can absolutely delve more deeply into specifics if they like — thanks for the link, that looks really handy also.
Yes, I wouldn't advise anyone to count all the syllables, only the beats! I also provide some practical advice as to how to go about scansion in that link.
I actually did a scansion a very long time ago of that Macbeth speech (it's very lively, but all the lines, apart from the last, are the correct length! The word "idiot" is contracted to two syllables, as is "syllable", ironically enough!): https://bsky.app/profile/8dawntreader8.bsky.social/post/3lms2k6kepk2w
You're right on the money about "anchor words"!
Obviously, you're only touching on meter here, but the video by Tom Scott which I link in this post is really useful for beginners, I think. I also touch on other common stumbling blocks: https://qr.ae/pvC4Jn
That's enough from me, I'm sure!
Shakespeare Nerd Here! Very illuminating lesson on how the purportedly Greatest Writer of the English Language uses and mis-uses (subverts?) rules and language to dramatic effects! Nicely done, Jo Gatford! Sometimes, if I'm "thinking" too much about content, I'll unblock my mental censor and write in iambic pentameter, which comes easily for me, maybe because I'm a musician and percussionist, but it distracts me sufficiently from content to allow more authentic and spontaneous flow to occur. Does this make sense? Iambic pentameter is a true friend in this way. <3 Other forms can do this non-intuitive thing, where a restrictive set of rules actually lead to a "letting up on the brakes" effect in creative flow, by causing us to "Look askance" and allow a deeper access to imagery and imaginative flow.
So interesting to see the connection between music and Shakespeare — Andrew in the comments below also mentioned that.
And the non-intuitive restriction method totally makes sense, especially when it comes to iambic pentameter, perhaps because it's a strange balance between a rhythmic flow and the fact you have to slow down and think/look closely at each individual word you're choosing to put down. Something meditative about it maybe!
Jo, I enjambed a caesura in a corner with a spondee, and came up with a cheese sonnet, by trochee!:
I think my love most like a cheese
heady, chewy, and worthy to please
yet I often detect scorn in her eye
like an ill-placed pimento in a loaf of rye
So cheese she's not, more like a bread
an oven-warmed loaf that goes to my head
But occasionally on biting, expecting the sweet
instead I'll suffer a taste like feet.
So neither bread nor cheese but champagne she is
for I'm fairly dizzy when I've uncorked the fizz
but our merry minglings under drink's delight
make the sharp sword of dawn a dreadful sight
[Cheater's note: I'd written this a bit back, so twern't spontaneous generation] Thanks for the wordsy fun!
Now this is a culinary, literary journey... I feel like this could have been written by Falstaff. Love the images of 'the sharp sword of dawn' and the pimento/scornful eye in particular. Excellent stuff.
Thank you! And the word of the day today from Merriam-Webster was "vouchsafe," which it cited as being used 60 times in Shakespeare's works. Noted in the definition's notes: "'Vouchsafe me raiment, bed, and food,' King Lear begs his daughter Regan." Regan wasn't known to be much of a giver though...
I've never given Shakespeare any thought, but do think about music when I think/feel what I am writing (rap music, country music). Sometimes, I get too abstract or indulgent, so I'll have to try and apply iambic pentameter discipline. Here are two samples from a recent essay and a WIP (memoir):
"I've spent most of my time on Earth in my head. I use my eyes and ears more than my mouth by a factor of ten. And by the grace of good sense and good genes, I've made it to the raggedy end of this mortal coil, way over here, on the far right of most graphs."
"My mother’s bed.
A bigger house. A better part of town.
We’re in the waning days of our American dream.
I gaze at her mattress, at the span of it. The sheets are barely lit. They’re all over the place, sweat upon, slept upon, kicked off by unhappy feet. I have a strong urge to curl up inside them. But I don’t. That would be weird. It’s something a teenage son wouldn’t do.
Instead, I linger at her doorway, fifteen and full of alarm."
With this second one, I wanted the word "unhappy" to serve as a bump in the rhythm of the rest, to sum up my mother at that time.
I almost wrote my dissertation on the comparison of rap and Shakespeare! So many similar rhetorical techniques in both — designed to bounce and ricochet around the brain when heard aloud.
And there's definitely something so lyrical and melodic about your writing rhythm. Like it wants to be read out loud. I really like the build up of alliteration/assonance: eyes and ears / more than my mouth / grace of good sense and good genes / bigger house & better part of town / fifteen and full of alarm. And those subtle internal rhymes/repetitions: waning days / sweat upon, slept upon.
'Unhappy' definitely acts as a bump in the flow. It forces you to pause, while echoing the Ps from earlier in the line. Something about the soft vowels suddenly hitting a short A in unhappy. Really effective.
https://sortes.co/
Allow me to fudge a bit and post a recently published tiny tale, only because it hits so many marks stated above.
I appreciate this lesson so much, feeling my writing has taken a turn to more joyful spirited small works
A link follows to the SORTES 21 piece « Ketchup ».
The running girl puns past fish arguing politics at a cafe. "Tuna it down," she says and runs to the circus. Her t-shirt reads I'm a pacifish. She runs the bleachers leaping over captive children watching a goat with one leg throw knives at their future. "Goat to go!" And she's off, in chase of a tuxedo cat dancing a tree of children to the river. She runs past a guard station and thuds huge pavers of off balance. The square ends blocked by a long concrete wall of division. She slows. Stops. Reads a smear of red letters. RUN
Such inventive language and imagery in this, thanks for sharing. You manage to capture the momentum of her journey in the leaps and bounds of your sentences. I loved 'a tree of children' and the smear of red letters bringing us back to the beginning.
Thanks for this ,Jo! I'm working my way through the Action and Emotion part and was struck by how many nouns for my emotion choice of anger have already been turned into verbs in common usage. Dagger, knife, gun, are already shortened from 'stabbed with a knife" to just 'knifed', though, to be fair, there are non-anger nouns like water or milk. But I wonder if nouns associated with violence have more commonly become verbs than other nouns?
It also occurred to me that 'He worded me' needs some context (which Shakespeare provided) as it could also be used for flirting with someone or boring them.
Oh that's such a great observation about the angry/violent verbing. I'm sure someone cleverer than me might have the answer about what makes a noun particularly verb-able... Perhaps when the object itself is used to perform an action, or becomes the product of an action?
And another good point about 'wording' being versatile depending on context — it could totally work in those forms as well. Makes me want to go and put them into practice now...
Love this lesson. Here are my experiments. The more I marked meter, the less sure I became.
I want the world to feather-pillow the ones I love - son, cats, friends. And barn-door me from others' need. Close it up before the horse of my worry bolts into the yard while I'm shaking February out of my comforter in crisp spring sun.
After marking meter and deciding on anchor words, I revised to:
World, feather-pillow the ones I love and barn-door me
from need before the worry horse bolts into the yard
shaking February out of its mane in crisp spring sun.
My question is: a word by itself has a stress or no stress pattern. However, in a line, the stresses in a word seem to my reading ear to be somewhat changed by what's around it. Is this the case or am I not fully meter-savvy?
Hi Lori, I love your innovative verbing in this example: 'feather-pillow' and 'barn-door' have great sensory/physical antithesis, too. And 'the horse of my worry' bolting is the perfect image to follow on from that safe barn. Ending on the monosyllables and assonance of 'crisp spring sun' works wonderfully, too.
If I understand your question correctly, yes, sometimes the configuration of a sentence will naturally place more stress on a particular word depending on the context. It's like that trick of changing the emphasis within the same phrase:
*I* never said she stole my money.
I *never* said she stole my money.
I never *said* she stole my money.
I never said *she* stole my money etc etc
In contemporary prose we'd probably put our selected emphasis word in italics, but Shakespeare tended to reconfigure his sentences so that the word he wanted was either placed specifically where the natural meter emphasis would fall, or he'd force an irregular meter so it was hard for the speaker to do anything else.
Take the word 'world' in your piece. In the first draft, it has a natural emphasis but it flows pretty quietly within the phrase. In the second iteration, you've placed it right up front, followed by another stressed syllable (which also creates a lovely little pause in between), so we're grabbing the reader's attention with: WORLD... FEA-ther pillow etc...
Great stuff :) Thanks so much for sharing.
Thanks - and yes to italicizing emphasis that as a reader I sometimes find over-dramatic! The kind of reconfiguring to match or disrupt meter that you describe Shakespeare doing is only one part of his brilliance and something I'm quite sure I'll never achieve. I'm a bit sorry to lose "son, cats, friends," all stressed, from the first version because it sets up "crisp spring sun" you mention at the end - all stressed, and plays with the son/sun homonym. But son, cats, friends sounds to me like padding in the new, shorter version. Onward!
Tough decisions to lose words/phrases we love, for sure. But I think the compacted version works wonderfully.
> THIS is the winter of our discontent
>
> — Richard III
NOW is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
Please! Don't change the word, emphasize it, and then attribute it back to Shakespeare.
Oh zounds, you're absolutely right of course. Have amended. A brain-fart during drafting (and one of those insidious adjustments that make it into popular phrasing!). Thanks for flagging it up.
Hello! I am an English Lit student studying at a college in Cambridge, UK. I loved this! So helful for my studies, super engaging too.
I'm not currently on paid though, please could you verify whether I'd be able to access the next three lessons without subscribing? If not, super happy to subscibe of course, but would love the clarification. Thanks!
Hi Lilian, glad you enjoyed the lesson! Yes, you'll need a paid sub for the next three lessons — but that also gets you access to all the other wonderful Forever Workshop workshops in their archive, so it's kind of a bargain. :)
Yassss. Bring us the bard! Have never studied him properly, but was stunned by a Shakespeare troupe who did an abridged version of three of his plays (filthy indeed) at University and also loved the 90s outbreak of Shakespeare movies (Much Ado, Henry V, Baz Lurman's Romeo and Juliet just to mention a few) so I'm excited about this.
Ahh that's great to hear. And seeing Shakespeare live is just the best experience, isn't it? Always gives me a brand new appreciation and excitement for language.
excellent lesson! Thank you!
Thanks for reading!
I love these tips. It's important to always read your work aloud. I create voice statuses with new poems to make sure they flow. Excellent share!
That's a great trick!